The Butlerian Jihad: Legends of Dune [Paperback]

The Butlerian Jihad opens a new series of Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's prequels to the classic Dune by Frank Herbert (Brian's father). Set more than 10,000 years before Dune, this covers the evil times when machine intelligence ruled the Old Empire of human worlds. The implacably efficient "Omnius" AI must be overthrown.

Many familiar names appear; Salusa Secundus now green and fertile, but fated to become a hellhole prison planet, is one of the free human enclaves on the fringes of Omnius's "Synchronized Worlds". So is Giedi Prime, later the evil Harkonnen HQ. Both are attacked by fearsome robot fleets and ex-human cyborg killers when Omnius makes a new expansionist push. Much space-operatic mayhem follows.

Major characters include Serena Butler, who will become the driving force of the jihad against computer dictatorship; her lover Xavier Harkonnen, heroic defender of Salusa Secundus; Vorian Atreides, son of Omnius's chief cyborg Agamemnon, convinced by slanted histories that the Synchronized Worlds are the good guys; Erasmus, an independent robot who plays devil's advocate to Omnius and conducts unspeakably gory experiments to determine the wayward nature of humanity; and Selim, a desert exile on planet Arrakis (Dune), who becomes the first man to master the dread sandworms.

Many other firsts are rather improbably crowded together here. This is the first serious export of Dune's life-prolonging spice; the first (perhaps) spice-induced prophetic vision; first forcefield body shield; and the first antigravity "suspensors" that are invented by a girl genius who may be the first Mentat--those super-gifted humans who will replace prohibited computers. She's also busy inventing the first interstellar jump-drive. Elsewhere, telepathic "Sorceresses" prefigure the Reverend Mothers of the Bene Gesserit.

Despite a few nuances like the "good" society being flawed by its toleration of slavery, The Butlerian Jihad lacks the richness of Frank Herbert's work--his psychological intensity, the multi-layered subtlety of his characters' schemes and duel-like conversations. Instead, this is straightforwardly rousing space opera, with battle, counterstrikes, kidnapping, vows of vengeance, a fateful love triangle, and lashings of gratuitous violence and dismemberment. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'House Harkonnen is compulsive reading. I certainly enjoyed meeting pardot Kynes and Liet, learning more about the Freman, as well as Gurney Halleck, Duncan Idaho and the Lady Jessica. Such vile villains...and such a fascinating description of splendid places.' (Anne McCaffrey on House Harkonnen )

'House Atreides is a terrific prequel, but it's also a first-rate adventure on its own. Frank Herbert would surely be delighted and proud of this continuation of his vision.' (Dean Koontz )

Those who long to return to the world of desert, spice and sandworms will be amply satisfied (The Times )

It began in the Time of Tyrants, when ambitious men and women used high-powered computers to seize control of the heart of the Old Empire including Earth itself. The tyrants translated their brains into mobile mechanical bodies and created a new race, the immortal man-machine hybrids called cymeks. Then the cymeks' world-controlling planetary computers - each known as Omnius - seized control from their overlords and a thousand years of brutal rule by the thinking machines began.

But their world faces disaster. Impatient with human beings' endless disobedience and the cymeks' continual plotting to regain their power, Omnius has decided that it no longer needs them. Only victory can save the human race from extermination.

BRIAN HERBERT is a widely-published science fiction author in his own right. This is his first novel to call on his father's work: previously, he has created his own worlds, sometimes in collaboration. He has also written Dreamer of Dune, a comprehensive biography of his illustrious father. KEVIN J. ANDERSON is best known for his world-wide best-selling novels based on the universes of Star Wars and the X Files: he has been a Sunday Times number one bestseller. He is also the author of several more critically-acclaimed original novels. An expert on the US space programme, he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for ten years.

S alusa secundus hung like a jeweled pendant in the desert of space, an oasis of resources and fertile fields, peaceful and pleasing to the optic sensors. Unfortunately, it was infested with feral humans.
The robotic fleet approached the capital world of the League of Nobles. Armored warships bristled with weapons, weirdly beautiful with their reflective alloy coatings, their adornments of antennae and sensors. Aft engines blazed pure fire, pushing the vessels to accelerations that would have crushed mere biological passengers. Thinking machines required no life-support or physical comfort. Currently, they were focused on destroyed the remnants of age-old human resistance on the wild outer fringes of the Synchronized Worlds.
Inside his pyramid-shaped vessel, the cymek general Agamemnon led the attack. Logical thinking machines did not care about glory or revenge. But Agamemnon certainly did. Fully alert inside his preservation canister, his human brain watched the plans unfold.

Ahead of him, the main fleet of robot warships swept into the human-infested system, overwhelming the crews of surprised sentry vessels like an avalanche out of space. Human picket ships opened fire, defenders swept in to meet the oncoming machine force. Five League sentry vessels fired off heavy salvos, but most of their projectiles were too slow to hit the streaking inbound fleet. A handful of robotic vessels were damaged or destroyed by lucky shots, and just as many humanships exploded in flashes of incandescent vapor Ð not because they posed a particular threat, but because they were in the way. Only a few distant scouts managed to transmit a warning toward vulnerable Salusa Secundus. Robot battleships vaporized the diffuse inner perimeter of human defenses, without even slowing on their way to their real goal. Shuddering under extreme deceleration, the thinking machine fleet would arrive not long after the warning signal reached the capital world.
The humans would never have time enough to prepare.
The robot fleet was ten times the size and power of any force Omnius had ever before sent against the League of Nobles. The humans had grown complacent having faced no concentrated robotic aggression during the last century of uneasy cold war. But machines could wait a long time, and now Agamemnon and his surviving Titans would finally have their chance. As was shown by a flurry of tiny machine spy probes, the League had recently installed supposedly invincible defenses against gelcircuitry-based thinking machines. The massive robot fleet would wait at a safe distance while Agamemnon and his small vanguard of cymeks pressed forward on a mission, perhaps a suicidal one, to open the door. Agamemnon reveled in the anticipation. Already the hapless biologicals would be sounding alarms, preparing defenses . . . cowering in fear. Through flowing electrafluid that kept his disembodied brain alive, he transmitted an order to his cymek shock troops. ``Let us destroy the heart of the!
human resistance. Forward!''
For a thousand hellish years, Agamemnon and his Titans had been forced to serve the computer evermind, Omnius. Chafing under their bondage, the ambitious but defeated cymeks now turned their frustration against the League of Nobles. Later, the once-defeated general hoped to turn against Omnius himself, but thus far had seen no opportunity.
The League had erected new scrambler shields around Salusa Secundus. Such fields would destroy the sophisticated gelcircuitry of all AI computers Ð but human minds could survive the passage. And though they had mechanical systems and interchangeable robotic bodies, cymeks still had human brains.
Thus, they could pass through the defensive shields unscathed. Like a target behind crosshairs, Salusa Secundus filled Agamemnon's field of view. With great attention to detail the general had studied tactical projections, applying the military skills he'd developed over the centuries, along with an intuitive understanding of the art of conquest. His abilities had once allowed a mere twenty rebels to take over an empire . . . until they'd lost it all to Omnius.
Prior to launching this important attack, the computer evermind had insisted on running simulation after simulation, trying to develop plans for every contingency. Agamemnon, though, knew it was futile to plan too precisely when it came to unruly humans. Now, while the immense robot war fleet engaged the expected League orbital defenses and perimeter ships, Agamemnon's mind probed outward from his sensor-connected container, and he felt his guideship as an extension of his long-lost human body. The integral weapons were part of himself. He saw with a thousand eyes, and the powerful engines made him feel as if he had muscular legs again and could run like the wind.
``Prepare for ground assault. Once our dropcarriages penetrate the Salusan defenses, we must strike fast and hard.'' Recalling that watcheyes would record every moment of the battle for the evermind's later scrutiny once the fleet returned, he added, ``We will sterilize this filthy planet for the glory of Omnius!'' Agamemnon slowed his descent, and the others followed suit. ``Xerxes, take the lead. Send in your neo-cymeks to draw their fire and flush them out.'' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.